Ryan Howard: Let’s Not Panic Yet

Ryan Howard has not had the most impressive start to the season. Through eight games, Howard is hitting just .212 with an NL leading 13 strikeouts. Although he says the leg is healthy, Howard has been able to muster just one home run heading into Thursday’s game.

When being asked if he’s at all worried about how he has played, as well as the team, Howard shot back a bit:

“Its 8 games,” Howard said. “You guys are trying to start a panic attack. If you wanna panic go ahead and panic, but don’t bring it around here.”

Howard also said that the team hasn’t been given enough credit.

“We’ve had a couple of mistakes here and there that have cost us games. In all actuality, we’ve actually played very well this year. I disagree with everybody else. Our record doesn’t necessarily reflect that right now.”

Can’t say I agree with his sentiment that the Phillies are playing well right now. There are phases of the game that have been better than 0thers – such as their ability to get on base – but in no way does that portend that they’re playing good ball. Their starting pitching has been up and down, their defense has been awful, and their bullpen has been downright brutal. That’s not good baseball.

Is it too early to panic? Possibly. The issue is that this team has so little room for error that panic time could be coming soon.